Most sore throats aren't strep. But because strep bacteria can in rare cases cause rheumatic fever, people often feel like they should get tested for possible strep infection.

It might be possible to skip that step someday by checking whether your neighbors have been getting strep throat, researchers say. Aside from reducing the cost and inconvenience of needless clinic visits, the neighborhood strep check could reduce the risk of being needlessly treated with antibiotics.

Former NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin pioneered a "faster, better, cheaper" approach to America's space program, but he would have been hard-pressed to deliver a Mars mission for the bargain-basement price of India's first probe to the red planet, which blasted off Tuesday.

Shots - Health News

12:03 pm

Tue November 5, 2013

Lisa Dieckman, a retired psychologist in Los Angeles, likes the Affordable Care Act's promise that everybody can get health insurance. But she's not happy about being told she can't keep her own coverage and will have to pay considerably more for a policy she doesn't consider any better.

Book Reviews

10:30 am

Tue November 5, 2013

There's a difference between ruminating and rambling, and Roger Rosenblatt crosses the line in The Boy Detective, his dilatory, meandering new memoir about his New York boyhood. I was a big fan of Kayak Morning, Rosenblatt's meditation on the tenaciousness of grief published in early 2012, four years after the sudden death of his 38-year-old daughter, a pediatrician and mother of three small children. But his latest, while less melancholic, more playful, and occasionally endearingly quirky, ambles at a pace that makes rush hour traffic down Second Avenue seem speedy.

Tuesday's elections are anything but dull. From the Eastern Seaboard to the Pacific Northwest, there's a colorful and compelling roster of political contests. Although there isn't anything close to the drama of an Election Day in a presidential year, many of the races have national implications.

Shots - Health News

10:28 am

Tue November 5, 2013

It's open enrollment time again, the autumn period when many people with job-based health insurance ante up for another year.

Although news reports have fixated on the problems with the online health marketplaces that launched Oct. 1, for the vast majority of people that's a nonissue. If they get insurance through a job at a company that has at least 50 employees, they probably won't be using the marketplaces, also called exchanges.

The Two-Way

8:05 pm

Mon November 4, 2013

Two people hug early Tuesday after reaching safety outside the Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus, N.J. A gunman fired several shots there Monday night, sending shoppers and employees scrambling. No one was hurt. Hours later, the suspected gunman's body was found. Police believe he shot himself.

A harrowing scene at a popular shopping mall in Paramus, N.J., ended early Tuesday when police found the body of the man who they believe had fired at least several shots Monday evening. The sound of that gunfire sent shoppers and employees scrambling for safety, brought hundreds of law enforcement officers to the scene and led to a lockdown and search that lasted for hours.

As of early Tuesday, there were no reports of any injuries at the Garden State Plaza Mall.

Maltreatment during childhood can lead to long-term changes in brain circuits that process fear, researchers say. This could help explain why children who suffer abuse are much more likely than others to develop problems like anxiety and depression later on.

The final chapter in the history of bombshells of the closeted gay politician variety may have been written Monday by Rep. Mike Michaud, a Maine Democrat running for governor.

Michaud, 58, announced in a column published in two state newspapers and by The Associated Press that he is a gay man, and followed it with the question: "But why should it matter?"

Judging from immediate reaction in Maine, where Michaud next year will be competing to become the first governor in U.S. history elected as an openly gay man, the answer seemed to be that it probably won't.